Google Execs: Technology Could Fight Drug Cartels in Mexico

WibiData, a big data startup focused on software for building customer-facing applications on Hadoop, has raised $15 million in Series B funding from Canaan Partners. Existing investors NEA and Eric Schmidt participated. [Source: WibiData]

AlephCloud, which makes technology to help manage content privacy in public clouds, has raised $7.5M in a Series B round of financing led by Handbag, LLC, a venture capital firm founded by Seth Neiman. The company has raised $9.5 million total. [Source : AlephCloud]

Interactions Corporation, which builds Virtual Assistant applications raised $40 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Capital with participation from Sigma Partners, Sigma Prime Ventures, RED LLC, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, North Hill Ventures and Updata Partners. [Source: Interactions Corp.]

Chinese Internet giant Tencent is opening an office in Malaysia, in part to consolidate its gains in the country with popular messaging app WeChat. The app has more than 1 million users in the country, representing 70 percent market penetration among Malaysian smartphone users. The app has about 400 million users worldwide, Tencent claims. [Source: The Next Web]

Loyal3, a startup that lets people invest in companies without having to pay transaction or management fees, has raised $18 million in Series C funding, led by DNS-L3, with participation from former Facebook privacy officer Chris Kelly, and Loyal3 Chairman and CEO Barry Schneider. The company has raised a total of $45 million. [Source: TechCrunch]

Facebook Home, the social network’s new launcher for Android phones, has been trashed in the US and is now striking trouble in Europe. HTC First, the phone that comes with Home pre-installed, won’t be launching on time in the UK or France, because Facebook has decided to instead improve the software before rolling out to international markets. [Source: TechCrunch]

Uber-messaging app imo.im, which is reminiscent of the old Meebo, has raised $13 million  led by its co-founder Georges Harik, an early Googler. The universal messaging dashboard has also unveiled a new “Broadcasts” feature for its Android and iOS apps that connects users with similar interests. [Source: The Next Web]

Mailbox, the stupidly popular email app for iPhone that recently sold to Dropbox, is now available on the iPad. Looks pretty much the same, but bigger. Apparently a version of the app is coming to Android soon. [Source: Mailbox]

Two execs, Alyssa Cutright and Alex Petrov (who hadn’t even started at the company yet!), have been dropped by Square, according to AllThingsD. Cutright was Square’s vice president of international, while Petrov was going to be the new vice president of partnerships. [Source: AllThingsD]

Today, 3M and Nanosys announced that “quantum dot technology” (tiny nanoparticles that emit light) are almost ready to be built into smartphones, tablets, and TVs. [Source: 3M via Mashable]

Although HP’s stock was up 13% in after-hours trading, the company’s PC sales keep plummeting, down 20% for the year. Meanwhile, although CEO Meg Whitman was once a fan of Windows 8, today she namedropped the company’s non-Windows products at every opportunity. [Source: Business Insider]

Yelp has dealt with claims for a long time that say the company benefits businesses that advertise with it by featuring those reviews more prominently. Today, Yelp’s VP of Communications and Public Affairs fired back at these claims, saying, “The sensational allegation that Yelp manipulates reviews and ratings to reward advertisers or punish non-advertisers… is not — and has never been — true.” [Source: Yelp via The Next Web]

Google Trends now has charts updated monthly that list the top searches in over 40 categories. A smattering of top searches — actor: Salena Gomez; athlete: Michael Jordan; authors: William Shakespeare. [Source: Google Trends]

The microsoft cofounder announced via Twitter that his band the Underthinkers will be putting out its debut album, “Everywhere at Once.” Amazon describes it as full of “blues-based rock guitar nuggets.” [Source: BetaBeat]

HP reported earnings per share of $.87, while analysts predicted $.81. Revenue was weaker at $27.58 billion, while the street had predicted $28 billion. [Source: Hewlett Packard]

Pittsburgh-based GiftCards.com will buy San Francisco-based startup Giftly to grow its mobile platform. Giftly has raised about $2.8 million in venture capital. It will remain in San Francisco but rolled into GiftCards.com. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. [Source: TechCrunch]